The movement powers on…

On Monday 16th March there was a meeting entitled “Practical Action For Palestine: What Can We Do?”, which then (as it always seems to these days) turned into an occupation. Solidarity texts to 0 7 9 6 1 0 4 0 6 1 8. At 4pm on Tuesday, however, the occupation got a letter from the head of security in the Hicks building announcing that, following their Student Union’s condemnation of our action, management would not be conducting any negotiations or discussions with them (this is after a pretty unrepresentative 5-3 vote by their SU Executive Committee). In their words:

“The basis of the SU’s condemnation was that our action was disruptive to students’ education, despite the fact that we have consistently said that we are happy for lectures to take place in our occupied space. Indeed, despite management’s attempt to unilaterally relocate all lectures (at significant inconvenience to students), dialogue between the occupation and lecturers succeeded in allowing lectures to take place in their original scheduled locations. Given university management’s intransigence, we are asking all Sheffield students, workers and other supporters of the occupation to send the following model email to Vice Chancellor Keith Burnett at vc@sheffield.ac.uk. CC to email to Rowann Sharples, his personal secretary, at r.sharples@sheffield.ac.uk, and CC us in at sheffieldoccupation@googlemail.com.”